#The Helmet That Could Change Football For decades football players have worn rigid unyielding helmets that protected the skull
but did little to prevent concussions. To address this shortcoming Riddell built a smarter helmet.
Available to NFL and college teams and soon youth and high school#players the new Speedflex is designed to diminish the impact forces of a hard hit.
It will also alert coaches on the sideline if a blow was powerful enough to potentially cause a head injury.
At a time when the sport has been hammered with bad news this#might be a game changer. At the crown of the helmet a flexible panel that has a polycarbonate shell attaches with a living hinge.
It is padded with polyurethane and synthetic rubber and can depress up to a quarter of an inch dispersing the force of an impact.#
#Most face masks attach to the helmet at a player s brow but Speedflex s attaches at the sides.
The configuration diffuses any force around the helmet away from one central area. The stainless-steel mask is designed also to flex.
Unlike buckles or snaps its guided tooth mechanism works more like snowboard bindings. Sensors in the helmet collect data on impact force linear or rotational acceleration and location.
If the hit put the player at risk of a concussion the information is sent to a handheld device that alerts the trainer on the sidelines.#
#Scientists Send Messages Directly From One Brain To Another So a team of neuroscientists sent a message from the brain of one person in India to the brains of three people in France using brainwave-reading equipment and the Internet.
It also doesn't make use of any bleeding-edge technology. Instead it puts together neurorobotics software
and hardware that have been developed by several labs in recent years. We're not predicting that this will have practical applications or society-changing implications any time soon.
Still it's pretty amusing that somebody did this and we're here to give you the step-by-step instructions on how.
and italics from the original paper#because they are awesome#wears an EEG cap on her scalp that records the electrical activity in her brain.
The cap communicates wirelessly with a laptop that shows on its screen a white circle on a black background.
The emitter translates the message she wants to send into an obscure#five-bit binary system called Bacon's cipher which is more compact than the binary code#that computers use.
The emitter now has to enter that binary string into the laptop using her thoughts.
She does this by using her thoughts to move the white circle on-screen to different corners of the screen.
Upper right corner for 1 bottom right corner for 0.)This part of the process takes advantage of technology that several labs have developed to allow people with paralysis to control computer cursors or robot arms.
The emitter's binary message gets sent over the Internet yay. The receivers sit inside a transcranial magnetic stimulation machine that's able to send electromagnetic pulses through people's skulls.
The pulses make the receivers see flashes of light in their peripheral vision that aren't actually there.
In addition the machine has a robotic arm that's able to aim at different places on the receivers'skulls.
The results are called phantom flashes#phosphenes)# that seem to show up in different positions in the air which is not spooky at all no.
As soon as the receivers'machine gets the emitter's binary message over the Internet the machine gets to work.
It moves its robotic arm around sending phosphenes to the receivers at different positions on their skulls.
Flashes appearing in one position correspond to 1s in the emitter's message while flashes appearing in another position correspond to 0s.
We don't know how the receivers keep#track of all that flashing. Perhaps they take notes using a pen and paper.
Whew that's a lot of work to give your friends a holler. The research team including neuroscientists
and engineers from universities and startups in Europe and the U s. understandably sent only two messages in this manner:
hola and ciao. Imagine trying to send bonjour or good morning. The team published its work#in August in the journal PLOS One.
It is there you can find this super-amazing graphic of the experimental setup
#Vest And Scarf Made From Spider Silk This silk scarf and vest have a nice drape
and pretty color but that's not why everyone here at Popular Science covets them.
because they're made of super-strong transgenic spider silk. Functional and good-looking! Our favorite.
Sciences and Shinshu University. Scientists have known long spider-silk proteins are exceptionally strong. Dragline silk the stuff spiders use to make the spokes of their webs
and to dangle creepily from ceilings is five times stronger than an equal-sized thread of steel would be.
Researchers have thought about using spider silk for everything from surgical thread to bulletproof vests. There's no reason to make a cute scarf from spider silk of course
but the Japanese team members wanted to demonstrate they could harvest their product and feed it into the same machines silk factories use.
Why not get the silk directly from spiders instead of it putting it through a silkworm first?
A silkworm that makes spider proteins could be a gentle little biological silk factory spinning out a super-strong product.
In this research scientists made copies of the genetic code for one dragline protein from Araneus ventricosus spiders The researchers inserted the copies into the DNA of Japanese silkworms.
and knit the threads into cloth just like silk factories do. The researchers are now planning to try to raise their genetically engineered silkworms at commercial farms the Japan Times reports.
They published their scientific work last week in the journal PLOS One e
#Pentagon Wants Artificial intelligence In Future Fighters The Department of defense wants future generations of fighter aircraft to come with copilots already installed.
According to#the U s. Naval Institute both the Navy and the Air force want their next generation air superiority fighter to have Artificial intelligence.
From USNI: The F-X is a fighter concept in development to replace the Air force s current top dog#the stealthy F-22 Raptor
which is designed to outfight any other plane in the sky. However the Raptor is expensive to produce
Adding AI could free the pilot's mind to focus more on fewer tasks giving them a cognitive advantage in battle.
Boeing s Phantom Works are developing the F/A-XX Advanced Navy Strike Fighter to replace their own F/A-18 Super hornet
The Navy s own X-47b experimental drone has landed on an aircraft carrier successfully and autonomously so adding a computer copilot to a naval craft could help there too.
Bringing the artificial intelligence inside the cockpit is one major way robots will fly alongside humans in fighters of the future--but it s not the only one.
Last month the Navy s X-47b flew in formation with the F/A-18 Super hornet with robots
and humans teaming up in separate vehicles. By the 2030s humans with robot copilots could fly alongside robots remotely controlled by humans u
Why not leave all that work to a computer? Perhaps you could use this experimental app that works in Google glass.
Aim Glass's camera at a person's face and the app reads the human's facial expression
Kidding aside an app like this could help people with conditions such as autism that makes it hard for them to read emotions.
The app is supposed to work entirely on Google glass'CPU so it doesn't need to send the images Glass records to the cloud.
when the glasses don't have a data connection which is nice. It could also keep the images the glasses record for the app more secure the images are supposed to stay on the device
A video demo of the software shows a prototype of the app on a laptop.
Over the past few years engineers working for several universities and companies have tried to make emotion-reading algorithms.
Usually the idea is that such algorithms could go into software for marketing departments (How is this new ad making viewers feel?
or into adaptive computer games (How is this level making players feel?.It's also a step toward loading the ability to read people's emotions into robots.
Making a face-reading algorithm for private individuals to use is an unusual but not unheard-of idea.
in addition to needing the software potential buyers have to be able to afford Google glass but perhaps
what's especially useful here is knowing that this kind of computing can be miniaturized to something as small and light as Google glass.
#Google Already Testing Delivery Robots In Australia In rural Australia a drone delivers dog treats to a farmer.
The robot is a proof of concept part of#Project Wing by Google X. The program is designed to show that delivery drones are possible
#Next for Google: figuring out the path from proven#prototype to everyday utility. The drone is a tail-sitter taking off vertically with its body perpendicular to the ground.
At rest it looks like a tiny spaceship from a 1930s comic book. It s a type of Vertical Takeoff or Landing (VTOL) rarely done with humans on board because#that transition from vertical to horizontal and back again is difficult for onboard human pilots to manage.
For the drone it works fine and the design lets the wing fly fast like a plane.
It also means the drone can hover and that s where the delivery mechanism of Project Wing shines:
A working delivery mechanism is the first step for the service. With the prototype in place the next challenge is creating an infrastructure for drones
so that they can travel safely through skies without hitting other vehicles. Google s driverless car program is an obvious touchstone for this project but it s a limited one.
Cars on roads travel in close proximity and only move in two dimensions. Aircraft operate in vast empty skies
and do so on three axes. Training a car to sense and avoid other cars#is simpler than doing the same for an aircraft.
Still Google s development and prior experience with cars is a strong sign that this work will continue and ultimately yield fruit.
Michael Toscano CEO of#the Association for Unmanned vehicle Systems International said thatit s worth noting that Google tested this technology in Australia first.
While the FAA clearly wants drones to sense and avoid other aircraft its been slow to implement changes
and create a regulatory framework that lets innovation like this happen stateside. If the drone industry wants to change the world it ll need an FAA that lets it deliver.
Watch the drone in action below and read more about Project Wing at The Atlantic a
#This Weird Tumbleweed Robot Might Change Planetary Exploration This Super Ball Bot is the vision of NASA roboticist Vytas Sunspiral#yes that's his real name
#along with Adrian Agogino and their colleagues who plan to have a full prototype by Mid-september.
In the process of developing this droid they may have helped pioneer a revolutionary new class of robots. The Super Ball Bot looks a bit like a cat's cradle of wires and sticks.
Motors batteries sensors and electronic control systems located at the ends of the rods can loosen or tighten the tension of the cables.
Wireless communications systems in the robots will allow users to control the droids remotely. The robot is a tensegrity structure
Subsequent research found tensegrities all throughout biology#for instance the human spine relies on both the vertebrae and the muscles tendons and ligaments that surround and support the bones.
We're pushing beyond the traditional approach of building rigid robots where forces magnify around joints
and moves instead of say having an airbag you use once and throw away. That saves a lot of mass you would need to fly on a mission which in turn saves on cost.
We are anticipating that some parts might fail says researcher Ken Caluwaerts a roboticist at Ghent University in Belgium.
This is very fascinating work says roboticist Sam Felton of Harvard university who did not take part in this research.
Modeling all the way these structures can also interact with their environments is also very difficult he added.
They developed algorithms for controlling the robots that mimic central pattern generators neural circuits in animals often vital to activities such as locomotion chewing breathing
In addition the researchers also developed a way for the robots to learn how to roll on their own with the help of evolutionary algorithms which is valuable for robots operating by themselves on another planet where the rules for movement might differ from those On earth.
But a great deal more work is needed before this ever becomes a NASA mission Sunspiral says. To help make tensegrity robots a reality Sunspiral
and built on the Bullet Physics engine a game physics simulator. They are also developing a low-cost easy-to-use tensegrity robotics kits to make it easy for people to put together new tensegrity robots for students
and researchers to tinker around with them Sunspiral says. We want to get people around the world exploring this revolutionary concept to help break new ground
#A Space Game Gets Real 1) Players can purchase virtual ships for $25 to $1250 (in real money) depending on model and availability.
Tempted to take on extra cargo to pad profits? That might strain the ship s components. 2011 Developers begin building Star Citizen in secret revealing just enough details to entice investors. 10/10/12 Crowdfunding campaign begins
and reaches its $2 million goal before the end of the month. 08/29/13 A hangar module launches allowing backers to walk around inside their ships. 06/04/14 A dogfighting module releases that lets players battle the computer and other
players in one of three ships. Late 2014 A first-person shooter module is set to be introduced. 2015 A planet-side social module will be added allowing players to explore cities. 2015 The single-player military campaign Squadron 42
is slated to release as a stand-alone game within the Star Citizen universe. Late 2015 Early public testing of the universe will begin as the game s designers pull together various modules. 2016 Star Citizen will become available as a seamless universe with modding tools and the ability for players
to host custom servers. This article originally appeared in the September 2014 issue of Popular Science e
#The Rise Of The Crypto Phone Between revelations of NSA spying and a sense that marketers and hackers are picking our digital pockets we re all getting a little edgy about cellular security.
Most of the handsets run on hardened versions of Android that make privacy the default for app permissions and network connections.
Wary users can also employ tools to convert voice or text messages into spy-proof gibberish.
#The $3500 GSMK Cryptophone s firewall even blocks snoops that can impersonate cell towers.####Free on any platformpros It allows you to query Google without accepting cookies
or giving your IP ADDRESS and to use Google as a proxy clicking through to third-party sites.
Con Proxy surfing feature can be slow.#####Free Android; ios coming late summerpros Apps enable#end-to-end encrypted calling and messaging.#
#Open-source code allows for shared fixes. Con Your callers also need to have installed the apps for the encryption to work.##
##Free WINDOWS OS X Linux Orbot for Androidpros The preconfigured browser routes you through a worldwide network of proxy servers anonymizing IP numbers.
Con NSA views Tor usage as suspicious.####Free tails. boum. org/Pros Housed on a USB memory stick
or a DVD this Linux variant OS uses only anonymous Tor Internet connections and leaves no evidence of your session.#
#Con Some popular software packages won t run on Linux.####$40 hidecell. compros Storing your phone in a metal-lined bag will eliminate surveillance possibilities by blocking cell-tower signals along with your Wi-fi GPS and Bluetooth connections.
Con#Mom can t get through either.####This article originally appeared in the#September 2014 issue#of#Popular Science p
#Boy Given A 3-D Printed Spine Implant Doctors at Peking University Third Hospital have implanted successfully the first ever 3-D-printed section of vertebra into the young patient.
The boy named Minghao had developed a malignant tumor on his spinal cord and some of his bones needed to be removed.
So during many hours of spinal cord surgery surgeons at the hospital replaced part of the cancerous vertebra in his neck with the implant.
Placed between his first and third vertebra the implant will allow Minghao to lift his head in the coming months.
The artificial bones were made with a titanium powder which is used also in many other orthopedic implants.
But unlike conventional implants 3-D printed structures are created from a virtual design based on the the patient's actual vertebra making them pretty similar to the existing bones
#and allowing them to integrate more naturally. It also means surgeons didn need t to use cement
or screws to hold it in place as they do manufactured with traditionally implants; instead they made tiny holes in the implant
so that surrounding bones can grow into the print and secure it in its spot. Though this surgery is a world s first 3-D printed orthopedic transplants have been gaining momentum within the past couple years.
In June 2011 the first 3-D printed jaw was implanted successfully in Belgium and in April 2013 the Mayo Clinic used a 3-D printer to create a customized artificial hip.
As for Minghao he had been lying in the orthopedics ward for more than two months before surgery.#
#Five days after the operation he still could not speak #but was said to be in good spirits.#
#He ll have to wear special gear for the next three months and it ll be a while before doctors know how the#implant holds up.
Forbes CCTV F
#Emergency Fund Will Bankroll Ebola Research To Help In The Current Outbreak Public and private donors in the U k. have launched an emergency fund for researchers studying Ebola.
They want a quick turnaround time for the research they bankroll. Applications for the fund are due September 8
and funders are hoping studies will finish within two months, the Guardian reports. The tight timeline is designed to make a difference in the current outbreak in West Africa,
which Doctors Without Borders expects to last longer than six months. The Guardian describes what kind of research they're looking to fund:
Among the projects they may look at are case detection systems in places such as Sierra leone and Liberia where there is illiteracy
and weak health infrastructure and where accurate data on the spread of the disease is difficult to come by.
and U s. federal agencies want to fast-track human trials of a promising vaccine. If all goes well,
the vaccine may be available sometime in 2015, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases, told USA Today.
The U k. fund comes from a pool worth $10. 8 million (6. 5 million British pounds),
Experts from the United nations the World health organization and universities will review grant applications, the Guardian reports r
#Turning Old Lead Batteries Into New Solar energy Used car batteries can leech chemicals and create lead pollution
when they're incorrectly trashed. A team at MIT believes that this lead can be cut out of the waste stream entirely
--and put to good use creating emissions-free energy. In newly published research the scientists show that recycled lead from car batteries works as well as fresh lead
when used in solar cells made with organolead halide perovskite film a compound that is fast becoming competitive with silicon in solar power technology.
The process is also cost-effective. Quoting MIT energy professor Angela Belcher a study co-author an MIT press release notes that with time ticking down on lead-acid batteries in favor of lithium ion cells we need to be thinking ahead on handling a looming toxic waste problem:
The group's work demonstrates that the perovskite created from the lead in just one old car battery could provide materials for 30 households-worth of solar energy cells.
Perovskite solar panels are also less energy-intensive to build compared to silicon-based cells and the leaded film would be contained completely within other materials.
The research Environmentally-responsible fabrication of efficient perovskite solar cells from recycled car batteries was published recently online by the journal Energy and Environmental science.
The team has put this video online to demonstrate their process s
#Autonomous X-47b Flies In Formation With Fighter aircraft If the latest tests are any indication humans
and robots will soon fight alongside one another against other humans and maybe other robots. Yesterday the U s. Navy announced the first successful manned & unmanned aircraft flight operations of its experimental X-47b drone.
The tests were performed#aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.##The exercise was operationally simple: the unmanned X-47b took off from the carrier's deck followed by a manned#F/A-18 Hornet.
Then the X-47b landed on the deck folded up its wings and an operator on the deck steered the drone aside
while#the Hornet landed on the same deck. It might be a simple concept but successfully integrating both manned and unmanned aircraft into the same flight patterns especially on the confined space of an aircraft carrier is essential for future operations.
It's#similar#to#the#challenge#of#making sure#driverless cars can safely avoid cars with human drivers
but doing so at high speeds in three dimensions on a rocking platform in the middle of the ocean with airplanes worth millions of dollars The X-47b#has earned a pair of nicknames:#
#Dorito from its wedge-shaped body and Cylon from its incredibly sophisticated robotic brain. Unlike most drones which have a pilot dictating their every move#by remote control the X-47b is largely autonomous calculating its flight paths.
Last summer the X-47b#successfully landed on an aircraft carrier#twice. It aborted a#third landing
but it did so to avoid crashing into the aircraft carrier and safely landed on an airstrip elsewhere.)
Here's a short video from the Department of defense showing some of the X-47b's latest flights
#South africa's New AHRLAC Fighter Is A Drone Alternative Powered by a pusher propeller, covered in pixel camouflage,
and furnished with stadium-seating for its two crew members, the Advanced High performance Reconnaissance and Surveillance Aircraft (AHRLAC) looks like an alternate history version of a World war i fighter.
The result of a collaboration between South africa's Aerosud aviation firm and the Paramount Group, the AHRLAC is designed as a cheap alternative to the big name in military surveillance right now:
drones. The AHRLAC is designed for flexible roles, depending on how it's equipped. These range from surveillance to light attack,
which could make it a useful tool for border patrol, some forms of counterinsurgency warfare, and, perhaps most relevantly, anti-poaching activities.
The pusher propeller design--in which the propellers are mounted behind their respective engines--helps the plane fly slowly, an important task for surveillance aircraft.
Pusher propellers were used also on the infamous Predator drone. AHRLAC's maximum speed is about 310 mph,
and some missiles. The manufacturers boast that AHRLAC is the"first ever aircraft to be designed fully
A short takeoff distance of only 1, 800 feet and high wings mean it can even take off from fields with some underbrush h
#Meet Harley davidson's First Electric motorcycle For 111 years, the Harley davidson has been known for many thingsreedom, leather,
quieter direction when it introduced Project Livewire, its first battery-powered bike. The Livewire has a lightweight aluminum frame rather than the classic tubular-steel version,
and a 74-horsepower electric motor. With nearly 100 percent of its 52 foot-pounds of torque available instantly, it can hit 60 mph in under four seconds.
Several niche companies have marketed electric bikes over the past few years but Harley entry into the market is telling.
This fall, before the motorcycle goes into production, Harley will take it on a tour of 30 dealers on both coasts to get feedback.
Harley-davidson Project Livewire Engine: Clutch-less electric motor Horsepower: 74 Fuel economy: n/a Price: n/a Range:
53 miles Charge time: 3. 5 hours from a 220-volt outlet Top Speed: 92 mph Car News You Should Care About 1) Ford will add adaptive steering into some models in 2015.
The technology, thus far limited to luxury vehicles, varies the steering ratio with the speed, making parking easier
and adding stability at high speeds. 2) Toyota has donated 208 used Camry Hybrid batteries to Yellowstone national park,
which when paired with solar panels and onsite micro hydro turbine systems will power a cluster of five remote outbuildings. 3) San francisco startup Cruise Automation is making a $10, 000 sensor system (due out next
year) that mounts to the roof of Audi a4 and S4 sedans, and enables semi-autonomous driving on highways. 4) Honda has started using 3-D visualization technology co-developed with tech firm 3dx CITE for crash simulations.
Originally created for animated film, the software also allows for easier design changes. This article originally appeared in the September 2014 issue of Popular Science i
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011